Fading around the Edges
by SourElf
Summary: Eventually it became a common reflex, a memorized response, or, like so many other things, a desperate, frenzied attempt for Draco's attention.


**I do not own Harry Potter, but I do have a very nice pair of socks.**

Pansy Parkinson is not stupid. Her talents are, however, quite . . selective. Every girl in Slytherin knows to come to her in need of a beauty charm. None of Salazar's girls try to curse off their acne like poor Eloise Midgen, and they'd have no need to go out in public with a zit. Pansy can change everything. The nose morphs under her care, thick, tall, long, button, a macabre show of nostrils and eyes switch color, widen, blend into the face as instant perfection. She's a goddess of the face, the boobs, the legs. Every job is impeccably realistic, and heart-breakingly temporary. It fades slowly, and while at first the girls (and occasional boys) begged for permanent fix for a hooked nose or birthmark, it becomes common knowledge that they are not forever.

When the girls leave her perfectly kept room with the large silver mirror dripping sweet words into their ears, they gossip about Pansy's face. And as they titter about the way she positively throws herself at Draco, their refined little smirks have never looked so glamorous.

She can't tell why, but the only time she laughs is around him. It's hard and tinny and fake and everyone hates it, but Draco makes her feel desperate, and she's slowly forgetting the other feelings. It's not so much a high as it is grabbing for something he has that's she's lost. Being with him makes her unhinged, and being properly hinged makes her feel numb like fingers out in the winter with no mittens.

Draco still cries. She can see the salt in his eyes.

Pansy never so much as sweats a drop. The only other time her surfaces fades and she forgets appearances is, ironically, when she's working on a face. Pansy feels the power that comes with manipulating a person's exoskeleton, their protection in a house where the strongest weapon is poker face. she calculates her movements, whispers perfectly executed spells, her eyes never leaving the pores of the person's skin.

Cedric Diggory's death was a blow to Pansy. Of course, she'd always hated Potter on principle, it was just a house-wide hobby. But if she was being being totally honest, which she never was, Harry didn't seem like he knew what he was. Which he ought to, as people told him it often enough. He was too easy to shake off balance, too often uncertain, something that would've been destroyed after a week in Slytherin. Pansy hated that. Harry was no hero, he was just a dumb kid like everybody else. Cedric, on the other hand, seemed like he didn't even worry about what he was. It was for this same reason Pansy rarely disliked Hufflepuffs. It wasn't so much that they didn't know what they were, they just never seemed to care. Pansy wondered, if she died, who would they mourn? Perhaps, they wouldn't mourn at all. That seemed like the best option.

She was sketching in potions class once, taking short pauses to innocently toss bits of rotten potion ingredients into nearby Gryffindor's steaming cauldrons, just enough to make that subtle change from eggplant to indigo. It was easy enough to do whatever you wanted in Potions, if you were a Slytherin. Pansy had a whole collection of sketches of the potions room, rarely full pictures. She would catch the curve of a smile, eyes a bit too far apart, and then loose the shape of the jaw completely. This time, she was drawing herself, using the curved reflection of her cauldron. But slowly her doodle began to look more and more like a cow. Cow Pansy looked mean, and flinty, and brilliant, and pointy all over, sharp edges everywhere, nothing dulled down for anything. She charmed the caricature to move around on the page, and left it on a nearby desk.

Hermione came over and stared down at it, laughing. Pansy grinned just a bit, sort of happy to be in on the joke.

¨Ron, look!¨ Hermione said in a rather obtuse stage whisper. Pansy slowly began to pack her bag catching snippets of the conversation. And together they tittered off, with barely concealed glances at Pansy, who pretended to be organizing her quills. Suddenly, she felt a lot less impressive.

She had always hated Hermione, for embodying her exact opposite. She was smart, and she tried incredibly hard, where Pansy had only come to school to find a pureblood husband. She was average-looking, but she never tried to be pretty. Worst of all, she had friends that were completely useless, whereas the exact amount of time Pansy spent on each member of her house was based on how useful of an ally they were. She had at first assumed that she had acquired Potter's acquaintance for this very reason, but as time went on, this association seemed dumber and dumber.

From the very beginning, Pansy never felt bad about being cruel to others. At first it had made her feel powerful, laughing at the world, using insults to mudbloods like a ladder to the top of the social pyramid, pulling herself up with an arm here, stepping on someone's head there. Eventually it became a common reflex, a memorized response, or, like so many other things, a desperate, frenzied attempt for Draco's attention.

The whole thing wasn't real, anyway. The danger of the old war would never come their way. It was background action for the storyline of her life, like the affairs of a distant relative.

Pansy never sang. It wasn't necessary, or dignified. But she used to memorize every beat, every note of a song and recite it back to herself under her emerald green sheets and 3 different silencing charms. She would try to figure out what about the Celestina Warbeck song had made Daphne's eyes glass over the night before, or why Blaise Zabini had allowed one mischievous smile when he heard a few phrases of the Weird Sisters. She would try to find the glazed over eyes and the grin in herself, and occasionally she would feel heat, and anger, and sometimes even sorrow, just softly, like it was gently touching the back of her head.

Sometimes, after she's been with Draco for hours, reaching out and grabbing for him with too-loud laughter and too-close sitting, she forgets where she's been and what she's done, and she chooses not to remember. Instead, she imagines that they were alone. That they drank tea together, and said very little, and that he let her touch his arm just to feel the warmth. In the beginning, she imagines they go out to the lake and he kisses her, just once or twice. There is just the edges of an old hope in these dreams.

When he first kissed her in the real world, it was four in the morning, and Crabbe was staring slack-jawed. Malfoy wiped his mouth off, and walked away. Pansy never imagined it in her fantasies again. But he seems to like her. She is brash, and obnoxious, but Draco has never been known for keeping good company. He tells her nice things in a shaking, sincere voice one night, and she knows she will never stop grasping for kind word, a soft touch. He kisses her every once in awhile, just to prove that he can do it. One time, she resisted, tried to leave. He didn't look her way for a month. She knows now that he is how she copes, and does not let that happen again. She had failed Herbology that quarter, a class she normally passed by finding a very dark corner, blackmailing a classmate, and using the fluffy, pink Mandrake earmuffs to fall asleep. Only Neville Longbottom knew, because he had been in Sprout's office when Pansy's mother stormed in to complain. The ensuing shouting match had made Professor Sprout Pansy's favorite teacher, due to the fact that she never batted an eyelash at her mother's tirade. Neville had nearly wet his pants.

Each morning she stares into the mirror. It does not speak to Pansy. It used to. She cannot recall what it said, but she has the strangest feeling it's her best friend. She goes into violent rages, trying to get it to speak, makes strange faces that would be funny if it weren't so heartbreaking, teases her hair half up and puts lipstick on her eyebrows, daring it to insult her, daring it to just say something.

And each day, she manipulates her face a little. One day, her nose is long and straight, the next it crooks slightly to the left. No one has noticed, and Pansy once desperately tried to turn her face back, tried visualize the creases, and she couldn't remember.

She tore at the memory, dove in, but she could not remember-what she looked like, what she was like, and someone told her Slytherins were haughty, and she agreed, someone told she was beautiful, and she listened.

And she became this beast, awake at night begging the mirror to remember her when she could not.


End file.
